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Aussies Welcome On H-P Cloud

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Australian entities are eligible to sign up for the test version of Hewlett-Packard’s new public cloud infrastructure-as-a-service offering, unveiled in the US this week, new enterprise media manager Stephanie Aye has confirmed. The service is said to be H-P’s effort at grabbing back customers it has been losing to Amazon.com (CDN, yesterday).
It will available globally, including in Australia, from May 10, H-P says, and so far about 50 percent of customers signing up are in the US, 50 percent outside.

Datacentres hosting the cloud service are all currently in the US, but H-P says expansion plans are slated for new facilities in the EMEA and Asia-Pacific/Japan regions.

Oz Tipped As Leader In Global Mobile Payment Revolution

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Mature Asia-Pacific markets including Australia will lead worldwide growth in mobile commerce transactions, as remote payments take off across the region, according to a new IDC survey.

The survey predicts worldwide mobile payments will account for US$1 trillion in value in 2017, up 124 percent from the less than $500 billion it has tipped for 2015.

And it adds: “Driven by a high number of initiatives and diverse mobile commerce maturity level, Asia-Pacific is expected to lead the world in mobile payment developments.”

IDC predicts that the limited state of credit/debit card adoption in Asia/Pacific will see mobile payments usage shifting to bank account-linked mobile wallets.

“Smartphone adoption has grown much more rapidly than general banking and card adoption in the Asia-Pacific region,” said Shiv Putcha, Asia-Pac associate research director at IDC.

“Recent focus on financial inclusion policies in various countries has given a boost to connecting the unbanked. This phenomenon, coupled with the innovation of semi-closed wallet schemes linked to bank accounts, has given a major boost to mobile payments in Asia-Pacific.”

“When we look across the region, we see a duality between the mature Asian markets like Australia, Hong Kong, and Singapore, versus the emerging Asian economies like China, India. and Indonesia.”

It predicts the mature A-Pac markets will prove fertile markets for solutions like Apple Pay and Android Pay – though recent remarks from Australian banks have suggested a certain diffidence about embracing Apple Pay 

Toshiba Has Another Crack At Trying To Get Notebook Traction

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Seemingly unconcerned about the imminent arrival of Microsoft’s Windows 10-powered Surface Book, Toshiba Australia has unveiled two new notebook models, including a lightweight detachable two-in-one.

But two-in-ones may be old hat. Tosh calls its new Satellite Radius 12 notebook, which sports a 12.5-inch screen, a “5-in-1” model.  The company doesn’t explain what that means, but rival Acer also has a “five-in-one” and says it can indeed be used in five modes: a notebook, a desktop, and in pad, display and tent modes, the latter three all without the keyboard..

Tosh’s Satellite Radius 12 five-in-one has a detachable 4K Ultra HD touchscreen display; built-in Harman Kardon speakers; a 512GB solid-state drive; and an Intel dual-core processor. Australian pricing starts at $2399.

The company’s other new model, the Satellite Click 10, pictured, is a detachable 2-in-1 notebook that transforms from a laptop with a full-sized keyboard, to a tablet. 

Described as a “school BYOD-friendly” device, it has a 10.1-inch touchscreen, a claimed 15-hour battery life; and weight of just 1.1kg, when used as a notebook; 553g in tablet mode. Available now from “selected retailers”, it goes for a recommended $699

HP Unveils Business Tablet

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Hewlett Packard says its new HP Elite x2 1012 tablet for mobile business users will go on sale in Australia in January.

The Elite x2 is described as a premium design, crafted from milled CNC aluminum with a focus on aesthetics.  

It is just 8.1mm thick, weighs less than 840g and has a built-in kickstand, adjustable through 150 degrees. The tablet runs under Windows 10.

The tablet is powered by an Intel Core M vPro processor. Pricing will start at A$1699

Toshiba Puts Chips On Table

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Scandal plagued Toshiba is considering selling a minority stake in its semiconductor business to raise funds in the wake of its drawn-out accounting scandal. The business sells memory chips to Apple and other smartphone makers and has been Toshiba’s main money maker in recent years.

Getting rid of the major asset, even in part, smacks of desperation for Toshiba, because the fortunes of its PC, consumer-electronics and nuclear operations have worsened.

Toshiba is considering a stock-market listing or a transaction with another company but would seek to keep control of the operation.

The semiconductor business requires continuous investment to maintain its competitiveness against its rivals, but Toshiba’s ability to raise funds has been squeezed by the recent accounting scandal in which profits were overstated by US$1.3 billion.

Telstra To Fight Caymans Action

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Telstra has confirmed that it will fight a court action launched in the Cayman Islands by minority shareholders of Chinese car Web site Autohome, seeking to nullify Telstra’s sale of a 47.7 percent stake in Autohome to the Chinese Ping An insurance group.Telstra will retain a 6.5 per cent stake in Autohome

following the Ping An deal, and has pledged to return at least $1.5 billion

from the sale to shareholders.

Autohome’s chief executive James Qin is said to be among the minority

shareholders opposing the deal via a petition lodged with a Cayman Islands

court.  He heads a management consortium that had planned its own takeover

of Autohome.

Telstra yesterday confirmed the petition had been lodged and added simply:

“Telstra intends to contest the petition.”

In a controversial move earlier this month,Telstra added an extra member to the

board of Autohome, appointing a sixth director to ensure it could push through

a resolution that was a closing condition of its $1.36 billion stake sale to

Ping An. Autohome is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, but is incorporated

in the Caymans.

VoLTE, Voice Over Wi-Fi On Way, Says Vodafone Aust. CTO

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SYDNEY – Vodafone Australia says it’s planning to launch Voice over 4G (VolTE) services later this year. And that will be followed by Voice over Wi-Fi, running natively through smartphones rather than having to be accessed via an app, according to Voda’s CTO Benoit Hanssen.“We’re seeing customer demand for fast 4G data

continuing to grow,” Hanssen said yesterday.

“VoLTE will allow customers to stay on the 4G network when taking or

receiving voice calls, instead of switching to 3G.

“VoLTE will deliver a superior call experience with reduced connection

times, while customers continue to enjoy Vodafone’s high definition audio

quality.

“One of the exciting benefits of VoLTE is that customers will be able to

multi-task on 4G . for example, if a customer wants to browse the Net while

having a conversation on the same device, they’ll still have access to fast 4G

data speeds.”

Facebook Revenue Up 39pc – But Stock Slumps On Spending

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Facebook revenue grew 39 percent providing evidence that it is wooing deep-pocketed big brands to take the lion’s share of the fast-growing mobile advertising market.

The social networking company posted revenue of US$4.04 billion in its Q2, up from $2.91 billion, nearly three-quarters of it from advertising on mobile devices. 

However investors were spooked by a 82 percent jump in spending and the shares fell as much as 3.6 percent in after-hours trade.

Net income declined 9.1 percent, to $719 million from $791 million, a year earlier, reflecting Facebook’s continued heavy spending, particularly on staff. It added 873 employees in the second quarter, to a total of 10,955, some 52 percent higher than a year earlier.

Zuckerberg has previously said this would be a year of heavy investment in datacentres, new hires and other long-term initiatives, including virtual reality and solar-powered drones

TPG To Fibre-Up Vodafone – And Resell Voda Services

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Vodafone has contracted TPG to provide dark-fibre backhaul to more than 3000 of its base station sites over the next three years – and in a separate deal, TPG will switch its 320,00 mobile customers from the Optus to the Vodafone network.

The moves put a value of at least $1 billion on the partnership and see TPG putting further pressure on Optus.

Vodafone will provide the electronics on the fibre, making the cost independent of traffic volumes. The move will make Vodafone much better positioned to cope with the expected increase in data volumes as more and more customers start using its 4G network. 

Vodafone CEO I?aki Berroeta, said the company expects data volumes to double every 18 months.

Importantly, the deal will remove one of Vodafone’s most significant disadvantages compared to Telstra and Optus. As the operators of fixed networks, both have extensive fibre networks that they can use to backhaul their cell sites. Vodafone has had to rely on buying capacity on other fibres or on microwave, which has much lower capacity than fibre.

Said Berroeta: “Dark fibre allows to us to have our own management of transmission and that means much faster speeds and much lower latency. These will all be requirements of 5G networks.”

Vodafone CTO Benoit Hanssen said that, when completed, there will be more than 3000km of fibre connecting about two-thirds of Vodafone’s present cell sites.  TPG will continue to own the fibre and its supply agreement with Vodafone is for 15 years. 

Mark Rafferty, TPG’s enterprise and wholesale GM, said the deal would give TPG revenue in excess of $900 million over the 15 year term. The company expects to spend $300-$400 million rolling out the network over the next three years. 

Separately, TPG will become a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) on the Vodafone network. TPG chief operating officer Craig Levy said the deal would enable the company to take some aggressive new plans – which are already on its Web site – to the market. 

“We are going to be moving our customers onto a real-time prepaid billing system which will allow us to tightly control our whole mobile business and make sure that our customers are not exposed to over-usage and over-charges,” he said.

“We will be inviting our customers to move to this new network and we will give them a bonus offer . We  believe so much in the service that we want them to trial it with no commitment and if they are happy with it they can stay with it.”

Apple Makes Siri Natural

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Apple has purchased UK-based artificial-intelligence start-up VocalIQ in what appears to be an effort to make its virtual assistant Siri sound more natural.

VocalIQ’s software improves a computer’s ability to understand human speech and to impart information more naturally. It is said to help computers to learn from each interaction with a human, employing an artificial-intelligence technique called deep learning.

The acquisition could help Apple’s efforts to bolster Siri, which is controlled by voice commands and sometimes struggles to understand users. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. The purchase is also seen as a further sign of Apple’s move into the automotive industry.